drunk nights on bikes

After some thought

2005-04-19T04:45:00.000-07:00

A band that I think sounds British, but isn't: Spoon.

Listen to a song off their upcoming album here.

DeAnn made me do it

2005-04-13T04:30:00.000-07:00

And since I'm a horrible follower, and seeing I haven't blogged in forever (although I have started several posts and never finished), and since it's 4:30 a.m. and I can't sleep, here it goes:

The Sound of Memes

1. Song that sounds like happy feels:

"So Happy Together" by The Turtles. Second runner up: Anything by The Polyphonic Spree.

2. Earliest (music) memory:

I'm not sure which one came first, but Michael Jackson's "Thriller", Billy Joel's "Uptown Girl" and Madonna's "True Blue" all come to mind. So does Cat Stevens' "Teaser and the Firecat", and seeing Joan Jett sing "I Love Rock 'n' Roll" on MTV.

3. Last CD you bought:

"Mona Bone Jakon" by Cat Stevens and "Four Seasons" by Vivaldi.

4. Reminds you of school:

Mazzy Star is the best make-out music ever.

5. Total music files on your computer:

Approximately 5,796.

6. Song for listening to repeatedly when depressed:

Just one? (Argh!, gasp!, Sigh!) I can make any song depressing, but the Oscar goes to Nico's "These Days".

7. Sounds British, but isn't:

Uh, I'll have to get back to you on this.

8. Song you love, band you hate:

I have no room in my life for hate. But I am occasionally ashamed of certain guilty pleasures, which I refuse to reveal.

9. A favorite song from the past that took ages to track down:

This is a stupid question (yes, there is such a thing).

10. Bought the album for one good song:

I have to like at least two songs to buy an album.

11. Worst song to get stuck in your head:

Culture Club's "Karma Chameleon".

12. Best song to dump a beer on someone's head to, then storm out of the bar?

"99 Problems" by Jay-Z.

13. Who should do this next?

Anyone who reads this. "Hello ... is there anybody out there?"

Reading: "The Book of Laughter and Forgetting" by Milan Kundera

2005-03-24T17:43:00.000-08:00

By no means am I an expert on Milan Kundera; I experienced his writing for the first time only one year ago, when I picked up "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" on a whim. It came on the coattails of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "Love in the Time of Cholera," a transition that made no literal sense, but plenty of emotional sense. The utterly romantic and whimsical tale of Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza left me teary-eyed and hopeful. Garcia Marquez is that good at making the impossible seem just the opposite. Kundera, on the other hand, puts it all on the line. Affairs aren't so dreamy in his world, they are cruel and heartwrenching. People don't make love, they fuck. Death isn't glossed over by destiny or fate, it's matter of fact, like life.

Funny then, that I list both novels among my favorites. I have trouble explaining it, even now. What I can say is that Garcia Marquez writes of worlds that I dream of inhabiting, where ill-fated lovers pen letters to one another in hard-to-find invisible inks and eat tropical flowers in hopes of satiating their desires. Kundera is less idealistic, but no less fantastic. I can talk of Tomas and Tereza and Sabina and Franz in the same way I talk about Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza. But I do not dream of living in their world; I have a sneaking suspicion that I already do.

I approached Kundera's "The Book of Laughter and Forgetting" with the same recognition, and the results have been just as satisfying.

I imagine if I read enough of him, I'll come to look at Kundera as I do Woody Allen. Aren't all of Allen's women essentially the same? Isn't it that little bit of Annie Hall that makes me love them? Whether "comedy" or "drama", isn't it all jazz and neurosis? And isn't it Kundera's insistent exploration of literature/love/politics/religion/sex/writing that make "The Book of Laughter and Forgetting" as profound as "The Unbearable Lightness of Being"?

Don't we really only torture ourselves with a handful of subjects?

I read something recently in "The Book of Laughter and Forgetting" that has not left me, and I doubt that it will for some time (truly, it seems to be at the heart of my existential crisis). While telling us about a woman who wants to write a novel, Kundera digresses into a non-fictional account from his own life (something he does often, thus blurring the line between fiction and reality):

"Recently I took a taxi from one end of Paris to the other and got a garrulous driver. He couldn't sleep at night. He had a bad case of insomnia. It all began during the war. He was a sailor. His ship sank. He swam three days and three nights. Finally he was saved. For several months he had wavered between life and death, and though he eventually recovered, he had lost the ability to sleep.

'I live a third more life than you,' he said, smiling.

'And what do you do with the extra third?' I asked.

'I write,' he answered.

I asked him what he wrote.

His life story. The story of a man who swam three days at sea, held his own against death, lost the ability to sleep, but preserved the strength to live.

'Is it for your children? A family chronicle?'

'My kids don't give a damn.' He laughed bitterly. "No, I'm making a book out of it. I think it could do a lot of people a lot of good.'

My talk with the taxi driver gave me sudden insight into the nature of a writer's concerns. The reason we write books is that our kids don't give damn. We turn to the anonymous world because our wife stops up her ears when we talk to her."

Incidentally, I'm going to see the new Woody Allen film tonight. More on this and that soon.

Can't. Stop. Watching. Love. It. So. Much.

2005-02-04T16:15:00.000-08:00

And again ...

2005-01-20T10:26:00.000-08:00

I had to laugh that it was Pez who demanded I get back to blogging. You may remember, she was the one who flaunted the "I'll believe it when I see it" attitude back in November, when I started drunk nights on bikes. And although I hate to say I've been less than committed, I will say thank you to Katie for giving me a swift kick to the ass. I needed it.

I've sat down to write several times over the past few weeks, but the things that came felt wrong. I thought about New Year's resolutions (too cliche), my beautiful new apartment (too boring), and the death of a close family friend and my grandfather (both too personal).

At the same time, everything else (cool Web sites, movements, politics) felt not personal enough.

Then it hit me: Who gives a shit?

And so today, as President Bush enters his second term of office and my family arrives in Southern California to bury my grandfather, who died Sunday after a long battle with cancer, I toast better times, for my family and the world at large.

And I leave you with a quote by Milan Kundera:

"There is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels with someone, for someone, a pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes."

In Memory

2004-12-29T09:39:00.000-08:00

I was not looking for my dreams to interpret my life,
but rather for my life to interpret my dreams.

-- Susan Sontag, 1933 -- 2004

Stuck "inn" an airport hotel ...

2004-12-28T22:45:00.000-08:00

Drunk, hating Delta, wishing I had my swimsuit. But at least I have free wireless. DeAnn says I have to do this, and since I haven't posted in a while, I will.

Three names you go by:
Chrissy
J
You

Three screennames you have:
nelsonj3
pugnaciousspirit
scurvsgrl

Three things you like about yourself:
Humor
Optimism
Taste

Three things you hate/dislike about yourself:
Optimism
Lack of patience
Vulnerability

Three parts of your heritage:
Danish
French
German

Three things that scare you:
Alzheimer's
Death
George W. Bush

Three of your everyday essentials:
Coffee
Music
My brother

Three things you are wearing right now:
Bangs
Jeans
Scarf

Three of your favorite bands/artists (at the moment):
Arcade Fire
The Delgados
Earlimart

Three of your favorite songs at present:
"A.M. 180" -- Grandaddy
"Drop It Like It's Hot" -- Snoop Dogg
"Jet Boy, Jet Girl" -- The Damned

Three new things you want to try in the next 12 months:
Eastern Europe
French
Trust

Three things you want in a relationship (love is a given):
Admiration
Inspiration
Loyalty

Two truths and a lie:
I am hungry.
I am tired.
I am tired of being hungry.

Three physical things about the opposite sex (or same) that appeal to you:
Attitude
Hair
Jeans

Three things you just cant do:
Drink goat's milk and blood
Keep my mouth shut
Swallow

Three of your favorite hobbies:
Sleeping
Talking
Walking

Three things you want to do really badly right now:
Go swimming in Norway
Talk to XXX
Write hate mail to Delta Airlines and P.F. Changs

Three careers youre considering:
Criticism
Lush
Writer
(a.k.a. The Life of Henry Miller)

Three places you want to go on vacation:
Estonia
Hungary
Tahiti

Three kids' names:
Chrissy
J
You
(Like DeAnn, I don't get this question.)

Three things you want to do before you die:
Learn to belly dance
Live abroad
Swim with a humpback whale

Three people who have to take this quiz now:
Cory
Kehoe
MOR

Witness the (drunk) Baby Stache in action

2004-12-06T12:17:00.000-08:00

"Do I make you horny, baby?"

"Go ahead. Touch it."

O Brother, Where Art Thou Mind?

2004-12-02T12:22:00.000-08:00

I didn't notice this yesterday, perhaps because I worked all day and by the time I got home my brother had gone to work, but I saw it this morning, right there in broad daylight. Is it a curious trace of chocolate milk, I wondered. It can't be a lip rug! Could it? He wouldn't do that ... would he? That's when things got messy.

I begged, pleaded, "Brother, please do not grow a mustache!"

"Too late," he said with a smug grin.

"You can't," I argued. "They'll tear you to pieces."

I then told him about C, a sexy friend of mine who, to the horror of ladies everywhere, grew a stache two winters ago. But it wasn't just girls who complained, his buddies did too. Some, actually one in particular, had the nerve to tell him how sleazy it looked. But the rest just trashed him behind his back, and reminised about the old days, when he was still hot.

He got the hint, but not Brother, henceforth to be known as Baby Stache.

Mustaches look good on three people: Dwight Evans, Peter Janelle and Tom Selleck. Do you see your name there Baby Stache? Do you?

Searching for Ray Bradbury

2004-11-30T08:27:00.000-08:00

Received an interesting note from my Michael: "RE: drunknightsonbikes. I LOVE the title. Have you read Ray Bradbury's essay "Drunk and in charge of a bicycle" about the creative writing process?"

It would be a logical explanation for my title, but not only have I not read Bradbury's essay, I haven't even heard of it. Until today, the only thing I knew about Ray Bradbury was that he wrote "Fahrenheit 451" (which I loved when I read it, way back when. There may be a direct link between the reading of that book and my book buying/collecting obsession).

Some quick research revealed that Bradbury has, in fact, published over 50 works. His first, "Dark Carnival" was published in 1947; "Fahrenheit" came six years later. "Drunk ..." was first published in "The Stories of Ray Bradbury" (1980) and again in "Zen in the Art of Writing" (1989). It has also been adapted for a stage production of the same name. I found this passage:

"There are one hundred stories from almost forty years of my life contained in my collected stories. They contain half the damning truths I suspected at midnight, and half of the saving truths I re-found at noon. If anything is taught here, it is simply the charting of the life of someone who started out to somewhere - and went. I have not so much thought my way through life as done things and found what it was and who I was after the doing. Each tale was a way of finding selves. Each self found each day slightly different from the one found twenty-four hours earlier."

Are Ray Bradbury and I cosmically connected? Or is this a text-book example of serendipity? I've often wondered if we find art or books or music or if they find us? I may never know ...

As for my blog title, it is a homage to my favorite summer pastime, one Michael described better than I ever could: "I loved drunk biking this summer and I will always remember (among so many other things) you biking up to Greg and I drunk. Sigh ... those were the days ... the sweet summer days when the sun was shining, it was so warm and everything was blooming."

He ends: "I swear to god I will live on a tropical island someday (and leave for hurricane season)."

Mikey, perhaps Ray and I will join you.

Fernet: Italian for mmm-mmm good

2004-11-29T11:20:00.000-08:00

I thought I knew a lot about booze until I became a cocktail server. I fell into the job by accident. Just home from three months in Europe, I went to The Best Bar in the World one night to have drinks with K. After a few rounds, our usual server asked if we knew anyone looking for a job. My reply: "Me." I was broke, desperate and drunk. I started the next night.

My first night of work, Cyn told me the job would change my life. And it did. Gone were the days of productive mornings (or early afternoons, for that matter). I officially became a creature of the night, working until 3 or 4 a.m., walking home, cash in my pocket and high on life, as the sun began to rise over the cityscape. I met all sorts of interesting people. The newly engaged, the party goers. The escapists. Baristas who would down two beers on their "lunch" break. The dejected and rejected, looking for a little solace. Artists and musicians and thespians (oh, how I loved when they would get drunk and make out with one another. Even off they stayed in character). And then, there were the regulars.

There was the Man with the Big Book, always reading, sipping coffee and nursing a brandy. Occasionally, he would bring his wife in for dinner and they would talk endlessly about the latest novels and which classics she would teach at a nearby college that term. But every night, wife or no, he would hold down the corner of the bar like it needed him.

And there was the Man with the Big Brain, who can tell you what song was No. 37 on the Billboard Charts in 1969.

There was a woman (whose name is not important, not that I know it anyway) who would come in at least once a week with her husband and order a drink called Fernet Branca. The first time I helped her, I had no idea what it was (something that happened often in the beginning; there are as many drinks in the world as there are people), but I played along. That's what I would do, nod and smile and run to the bartender and hope he/she knew what I was looking for. They did, of course, because The Best Bar in the World has the best bartenders, the kind who'd pour a drink for the customer and a taste for me. They'd say, "You have to know you're product."

I will call this woman The Giver of Fernet.

When I moved to the East Coast, I couldn't find it anywhere. And I missed it, so I convinced my new bartender to order a bottle. When it arrived, I was beside myself. Most of the staff was dying to know what the fuss was about, so we all got a taste. The sting of the semi-sweet, medicinal liquid took me back to crazy nights, shots at the bar, falling in love, dancing with myself.

But everyone else hated it. Everyone, that is, but me. And this guy.

Do something, buy nothing

2004-11-26T12:03:00.000-08:00

I need toilet paper, but it will have to wait: http://www.adbusters.org/metas/eco/bnd/

Please join me.

Option B

2004-11-24T22:12:00.000-08:00

I can think of at least one friend who refuses to blog under the influence; I understand her conviction, since we all do and say things we might not normally do or say otherwise. But ... I titled my blog "drunk nights on bikes". I mean, would I have called it that if I spent most nights sober? Let me assure you, no. And seeing that my options are:

A) Drunk dial various friends and lovers until someone humors me enough until I fall asleep, or

B) Post to a site not many people know about anyway ...

I choose B!

You have chosen wisely.

Who said that? ...

A few thoughts on my new endeavor:

1. I knew there would be nay-sayers. And I suppose I should say I deserve it (after all, Pez has known me for a long time), but seriously, I don't. Just because I happen to live in place after place without reliable Internet access does not make me unreliable. It makes the Internet unreliable.

2. I'm truly touched that D posted about my blog. She inspires me, and the fact that she believes I might actually stick with this thing is almost enough inspiration for me to do so.

3. I'm pretty fucking stoked about this thing. Getting rid of my old blog was the cyber equivalent of a colon cleansing. I feel like a new person.

Getting back to the point though ... I've been drinking. It wasn't a tough night at work, but it was enough to make me have a few glasses of wine. I should tell you that I work in a restaurant. It's upscale, on a resort island off the East Coast. It's a good job. Good food and wine are important to me, and I'm glad both are part of my daily life. But even nice restaurants are frequented by shitty customers, and tonight was no exception. But I'm not going to rant about how much they sucked. The fact is, I have sucky customers almost every night. Imagine if I let it get to me. I'd have to find a new job, and I don't want to do that. Because even though I complain every once in a while, I like my job. It's low stress, the money is good and I can up and leave whenever I want.

Then why the post? Well, I think Nora Ephron was channelling me. Let's call it a "Sleepless in Seattle"/"You've Got Mail" moment. I was just thinking about what it all means. And even though I know I don't have the answers, I know it's not blogs or dinner out or even good wine. But I'm thankful I have them, you know?

That's Ms. Loser to you

2004-11-24T11:03:00.000-08:00

Last week, in the middle of a breakdown, I sent my best friend a laundry list of reasons my life is falling apart. It included, in no particular order, the fact that I have no idea where I'm headed (emotionally and professionally) and that I'll be homeless in less than one month. I then offered her the best example of my inability to accomplish anything: "I can't even keep up my blog!"

That's right. The fact that I couldn't maintain something as simple and (no offense) seemingly unimportant as a blog made me feel like a loser. Today I decided to take control.

Five minutes ago I deleted my first blog. A friend begged me not to, but I rejected her pack-rat mentality, opting instead to Feng Shui my psyche. And I have to tell you, I feel fucking great. I do believe this is what Martha Stewart (God, bless her) would call "A Good Thing."

I started my first Web Log last spring in an effort to keep family and friends posted on my life. I was moving from one coast to the other, and wanted an easy way to keep people informed. This will be more of the same, only different and better. Here's to a fresh start.